ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The UN Population Division predicts that 2014 will be the peak birth year, expecting that 139 million babies will be born -- more than in any single year in the history of the world. After this the number of yearly births will steadily decline, according to UN estimates, even as the world population continues to rise. Never again will we need so many obstetricians as today, even if humanity climbs to a peak of 11 billion people sometime in the early 22nd century.
Iraq is still cranking out more babies than the rest of the world. Iraqi women have 4.5 children, compared to a global average of 2.5, as reported by a 2011 Unicef survey. This is the second-highest fertility rate in Western Asia, where only Yemeni women are having more children.
Within Iraq, women in the Kurdistan Region have a lower average (3.1). The most populous governorate, Sulaimani, has the smallest fertility rate by far (2.3), while women in the northern Dohuk region have the most children (3.9).
Dr. Jamal Ameen, statistics professor and a senior advisor at the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Planning, explains why families in Sulaimani are so much smaller.
“In Sulaimani they try to show a modern style. They have a sort of self-imposed birth control, as opposed to the rest of Iraq -- particularly the center -- where people don’t practice it because of religion,” he believes. “They’re only 200 kilometers away from Erbil, but it’s been that way as long as I can remember. It’s first and foremost a cultural difference.”
According to him, a large part of this had to do with the establishment of Salahaddin University in Sulaimani in 1968, which brought in foreign faculty and established a more multicultural environment. Even if the university was transferred to Erbil in 1981, certain western-oriented attitudes and practices stuck, including family planning.
Campaigns to reduce poverty levels usually stress the importance of smaller families. Despite this, Dr. Jamal argues that Iraqi Kurdistan needs high fertility rates.
“My opinion is that we need a large young generation. If you look at our population pyramid, you see the tragedies we’ve been through,” referring to the over 200,000 killed during the genocidal Anfal campaign of the 1980s under Saddam Hussein.
“We shouldn’t play with birth rates,” he continues, pointing to states like China or Iran, which have coerced or encouraged citizens to have fewer children. “Instead, we should have child-centric policies that empower young people to think and plan for themselves. They need to be able to imagine, to manage, to take control of their lives. This is what Kurdistan is currently missing, and this should be the policy focus.”
The rate of population growth in Iraq is expected to steadily decrease. Fertility rates are slowly declining, even without family planning policies. Nonetheless, the Iraqi population will grow to reach more than 106 million by 2100, according to UN projections. This would make it the largest country in the Middle East by far, outpacing Turkey, which is only set at 84 million.
There are reasons to be skeptical about these projections, however.
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